Ancient black dust and chunks are from asteroid named Bennu, almost 60m miles away and collected three years ago
Chunks of a 4.6bn-year-old asteroid brought to Earth last month show evidence of high levels of carbon and water, Nasa said on Wednesday as the space agency revealed preliminary findings from its pioneering Osiris-Rex mission. Scientists have been analyzing the samples from the asteroid Bennu since they were dropped off by a spacecraft flyby of the Utah desert on 24 September. Principal investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, told reporters at Houston's Johnson Space Center (JSC) they were "scientific treasure". The carbon-rich asteroid fragments, the largest such haul ever recovered, "will help scientists investigate the origins of life on our own planet for generations to come", Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said. The researchers also announced the mission that brought the samples to Earth after a three-year journey of almost 60m miles was even more successful than first anticipated. A view of the outside of the Osirix-Rex sample collector, with sample material from the asteroid Bennu, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Photograph: NASA/Reuters The original goal of the mission was to collect a little more than 2oz (60g) of asteroid material that would be studied by curation experts in new clean rooms at JSC built specifically for the mission. But when the canister lid was first opened, scientists discovered "bonus asteroid material" covering the outside of the collector…